I spent my morning thinking about all the crazy things I have tried in order to make any given month a success. I have browsed forums like crazy looking for that magical answer! Each and every time I read about some new method that supposedly works I tried it.
Have you found yourself taking Mucinex for a few days because its suppose to make the CM better? Sticking your legs up in the air for an hour just because gravity might make a difference? or how about taking all kinds of odd medications just because they promise to make you fertile? I have spent tons of money on lots of things just to get that BFN (negative pregnancy test) at the end of the long and dreaded two week wait.  I just wanted to share a couple of fertility  facts with you today.

Fact: Many women are placed on birth control pills (BCPs) because of medical conditions such as irregular periods, heavy periods, orendometriosis, all of which are associated with reduced fertility. For these women, the pill may actually preserve fertility. For women who use BCPs for contraception, the hormones are very quickly eliminated from the body and do not cause infertility.

Fact: There is no doubt that infertility causes stress, but the stress of an overcommitted lifestyle and poor health habits can adversely affect fertility as demonstrated in a number of medical studies.

Finally here are some common myths

Ovulation occurs on the day of the drop or the day of the rise in BBT.

This is one of the most common myths perpetuated by the medical community. In reality, the exact day of ovulation cannot be determined by the basal body temperature. Only about 10% of women even have a drop in basal temperature. And once the temperature has risen, it is virtually certain that the egg is already gone (assuming conception hadn’t occurred beforehand.) This is because an egg only lives 12-24 hours, and by the time the temperature has risen, the egg is no longer viable. Therefore, if a couple wants to achieve a pregnancy, the sign to focus on is not the basal temperature, but the cervical fluid.

A woman can get pregnant only one day per cycle.

While it is true that a human egg is only viable for 12 to 24 hours, a woman can actually get pregnant from an act of intercourse occurring anytime from about five days prior to ovulation to even occasionally two days after, for a total of about seven days.

The reason for this is that the sperm can survive up to five days inside the woman's reproductive tract, and a woman can release two or more eggs within a 24 hour period.. Hence, for all intents and purposes, a women can get pregnant for about one week per cycle.

Ovulation usually occurs on Day 14 of the cycle.

Probably the most widely held fertility myth is the notion that women always ovulate on Day 14 of their cycle. If this were indeed true, there would be virtually no need for birth control, since couples could simply avoid that one day. And scores of couples desiring a child would simply have intercourse on Day 14, and Bingo, get pregnant.

There are several serious consequences to the Day 14 fallacy:

    * Many unplanned pregnancies occur because couples think they are safe for unprotected intercourse on any day but Day 14.
    * Many couples who desire to get pregnant actually impede pregnancy by timing intercourse on Day 14, when, in reality, the woman may ovulate either much earlier or later than that one particular day.
    * Many diagnostic tests and therapies are performed at an inappropriate time in the woman’s cycle. These include infertility procedures such as post-coital tests and endometrial biopsies, as well as general health procedures such as mammograms and diaphragm fittings.
    * If a woman does get pregnant, the doctor’s office will usually utilize a "pregnancy wheel" to determine her due date. But this device assumes that women ovulate on Day 14, and therefore could be off by several weeks, leading physicians to perform diagnostic tests at inappropriate times (e.g. amniocentesis) or even induce labor before the baby is fully developed.